Kengo Kuma

Kengo Kuma is one of Japan's most internationally recognized contemporary architects and a leading voice in the search for a more harmonious relationship between architecture, nature, technology, and human beings. Born in Yokohama in 1954, he graduated in Architecture from the University of Tokyo in 1979 and later continued his studies and research at Columbia University in New York. In 1987, he founded Spatial Design Studio, and in 1990 established Kengo Kuma & Associates (KKAA), which has since grown into an international practice with projects underway in more than 50 countries.

Throughout his career, Kuma has developed an architectural language that challenges the idea of architecture as an isolated object. Instead, his work seeks to create environments that are deeply connected to their surroundings, often through the use of natural materials, light, transparency, fragmentation, and carefully calibrated relationships between interior and exterior. Wood, stone, bamboo, glass, earth and other local materials frequently become essential elements of his architecture, allowing buildings to respond to their cultural and environmental contexts.

His approach is rooted in a profound interest in Japanese architectural traditions, but it is not a nostalgic return to the past. Kuma continuously reinterprets traditional techniques through contemporary technology and new forms of construction. His architecture often reduces the apparent weight of buildings, breaking large volumes into smaller elements and creating spaces in which nature, people and materials can interact.

Among his best-known works are the V&A Dundee in Scotland, the Japan National Stadium in Tokyo, the Yusuhara Community Library, the Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center, the Water Branch House, and numerous cultural, educational, civic and commercial projects across Asia, Europe and North America. His practice has also developed a significant body of work in Italy, including the Casalgrande Ceramic Cloud, the Nezu Museum-related projects, the Padova Congress Centre, and collaborations with leading Italian companies and institutions.

Kuma is equally committed to research and education. He has taught at Keio University and the University of Tokyo, where he served as Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture from 2009 to 2020 and is now Special Professor and Professor Emeritus. He has also held teaching and visiting positions at Columbia University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Tokyo University of the Arts, Waseda University and other institutions. His academic work has explored architecture, urbanism, materials, and the relationship between buildings and their environments.

His thinking has been widely shared through numerous books and publications, including Anti-Object, Architecture of Defeat, Natural Architecture, Small Architecture, and Point Line Plane. Across his writings and projects, Kuma has consistently questioned the dominance of monumental architecture and advocated for a more sensitive, contextual and human-scale approach to design.

His contribution to contemporary architecture has been recognized internationally. Among his many distinctions are the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Award, the Italian Order of Merit at the rank of Grand Officer, the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun with Purple Ribbon, honorary doctorates from institutions including the University of Dundee and Politecnico di Milano, and the Louis I. Kahn Award, received in 2025. In 2021, he was also included in TIME magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Today, Kengo Kuma & Associates continues to develop projects across the world while pursuing an architecture that seeks not to dominate its surroundings, but to become part of them. His work demonstrates how architecture can connect contemporary innovation with local culture, natural materials and human experience — a vision that has made him one of the most influential architects of his generation.

Kengo Kuma is Jury President of Kaira Looro since 2017.